Vedic Science International Multidisciplinary Peer-reviewed Journal 

The articles below are the official digital versions of peer-reviewed papers from the print edition of the Vedic Science Journal.

Article  Information

Journal: Vedic Science
Volume: 28 | Issue: 3 | Year: 2026
Pages: 115–136
DOI:  https://doi.org/10.66718/vsj.v28.i3.10    
Received: 28 July, 2026
Accepted:  4 Sept., 2026
Published: 30 Sept., 2026

Gītā's Witness V/S Smith’s Impartial Spectator

Prof. Balbir Singh Sihag, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Abstract

This article advances three interlocking arguments concerning the philosophical genealogy and structural character of Adam Smith’s impartial spectator. First, it contends that the impartial spectator as presented in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is fundamentally a legal–juridical construct: it applies pre-existing rules of conduct in the manner of a court of judicature, is structurally indexed to the coercive vocabulary of punishment and resentment, and operates as an external regulatory mechanism rather than an instrument of genuine ethical formation. Second, the article challenges the received scholarly claim that Smith’s moral philosophy inherits its central framework from Aristotle, arguing that Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics does not constitute a universal ethical theory in any recognisably modern sense but is instead a teleological catalogue of virtues calibrated to the free male citizen of the Greek polis, embedded in a specific cultural and political formation that cannot be transposed without loss into Smith’s sentimental system. Third, and most substantially, the article argues that the conceptually richer, structurally more precise, and historically antecedent parallel to Smith’s spectator is the Vedic–Gītā figure of the Witness (Sākṣī/Kṣetrajña), whose attributes — unconditioned awareness, non-partisan interiority, and character-forming self-inquiry — supply precisely what the impartial spectator lacks. The article calls for a methodological reorientation in the history of moral philosophy toward sustained engagement with the Vedic philosophical inheritance.

Keywords

Adam Smith; impartial spectator; Aristotle; virtue ethics; Vedic philosophy; Bhagavad Gītā; Sākṣī; Kṣetrajña; moral formation; legal positivism; comparative philosophy.

References

Primary Sources

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How to cite this article

Sihag, B.S. (2026). Gītā's Witness V/S Smith’s Impartial Spectator. Vedic Science, 2026 (3), 115-136. ISSN: 0975-0312 (Print). DOI:  https://doi.org/10.66718/vsj.v28.i3.10